One of the blogs I regularly read (and recommend) is that of Evangelical Covenant Pastor turned Project Missionary in Guam, Brad Boydston. He has a post suggesting 'Two Things We Could Do To Improve Our Worship'. I commented there the initial reaction that I had to his post. It has been a post to generate much thought provocation for me.
What do you think concerning today's worship music? What of Brad's two suggestions? If you were to make two suggestions, what would they be? I'll weigh in with some more thoughts of my own soon.
That is a good post on Brad's blog. I have no, or at least very little trouble with a lot of I's in worship songs. Worship, even in a corporate setting, is still about one person in an intimate moment with their creator. Writers of worship music should and do write music that is for the individual and a group. Worship leaders need to learn to be sensitive as to when it would be appropriate to change the lyrics.
I once worked with a worship leader in So. Fl. that routinely changed lyrics to fit what was going on in the worship service, culturally, etc. He was very good at determining what would work and what would not.
Also there are different types of worship songs. Those we sing to God, those we sing about God. I've heard worship leaders/pastors describe this as vertical or horizontal worship. To God is verical, about God is horizontal.
As I am sitting here trying to gather my thoughts on this subject I thought of the 5 words of worship from the Bible. Words that we sing in many or our worship songs that many don't know the meaning of. Perhaps there is something to be learned about what true worship is from these words.
Hallelujah: God be praised!
Maranatha: Come, oh Lord.
Hosanna: Save us now.
Abba: Father.
Amen: Let it be so!
As a musician my biggest grip with worship music is usually not so much with the lyric content but with the actual music. Too often I find it musically dull and more often than not one song ends up being the same as the others. Just a different key. Stylistically it offers little challenge and it gets old after a while. Not all worship music is like this... but a lot of it is. I'm fortunate that the church I'm at does a very wide range of worship songs. We cover a lot of ground stylistically which, for me, means I get more out of the whole experience because I enjoy what I'm doing.
Posted by: Mark Ellison | October 06, 2008 at 09:19 PM
You can go back to Brad's post to see how I responded. Totally agree with his suggestions. I get what you're saying Mark, but I think if you don't see a lack of true worship content in a lot of today's "worship" music I think you're missing something. And that's coming from a guy that didn't grow up with hymns and loves to rock. I highly recommend reading Robert Webber's Ancient Future Worship for more insight into our decline in worship (which remember is not synonymous with music).
Posted by: Jesse Andreasen | October 14, 2008 at 02:13 PM
I totally get that Jesse. There is "worship" music out there that is totally about making money. That's what you get when a record label gets involved even in the christian/religious world. When it becomes about making money or simply putting out product before the next guy does there will certainly be a lack of content.
Again, not all worship musicians are like this... let's call it what it is. If it's entertainment call it entertainment. There's nothing wrong with that. If it's worship call it worship. And I totally agree with what you said about singing "give him praise" and thinking that's all there is to it.
I think one element that is missing in the modern day church is teaching people how to worship. It's almost like churches just expect folks to come in and know what and how to do it. You raise your hands because you see someone else doing it, you sing a song or two, maybe you cry a little, jump up and down a little but do you really know why? Praise and worship is so much more than this. Think of it like this... when we get to heaven we get to worship God for all eternity; that's how important it is that we get it right here now!
Posted by: Mark Ellison | October 14, 2008 at 09:05 PM